


the home you could have found (you burned it down)

by cynical_optimist



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Post-Season 2, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: “Blackwing could do real good in the world,” Ken says. “Imagine what would happen if we could replicate your power-- we’d be able to stop crime before it even starts.”“They tried that,” Bart says, and her fingers tighten around the knife. “It didn’t work.”-Wherein Ken follows Blackwing too far, and the universe requires balance.





	the home you could have found (you burned it down)

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after season two, on the possibility that Ken becomes Riggins 2.0. Many thanks once more to [Lauren](http://call-this-a-mask.tumblr.com) and [Kathi](http://hotchocolatenthusiast.tumblr.com) for screaming at me about this fic.
> 
> Title from Mappe Of's [Carbon Scores and Smoke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJOo9pwnB8o).

Finally, Bart finds Ken.

It took longer than she thought it would, which is maybe because she refused to actually go to Blackwing or obey the universe. Staying in the cell with Panto had been fun, and safe, and not even that boring, considering, but it definitely got in the way of finding Ken. She’d been looking for months by then, though; everyone needs a break now and again. Hers had just been from killing, instead of, like, work or whatever normal people do.

Still, she finds Ken.

He’s in Blackwing, which makes sense, and he’s already out of his cell-- that makes less sense, but it also means that he’s managed to get himself away from them partially, or would if it wasn’t for all the guards around him.

“Ken!” she calls, as she reaches behind her, universe tugging, and her knife sinks into something soft and fleshy. There’s a gurgling scream, and Ken looks up.

“Bart!” Ken says, and his face lights up, the way people do when they’re  _ really _ happy, except he doesn’t step forward to meet her. “I - I finally found you! I knew I would.”

She cuts her way through another two soldiers, and a bullet flies past her nose to get the third. Idiots. “I found you!” she argues. “I’ve been looking for like-- for a long time. I kept on asking, but no one knew who you were, and then one of-of --  _ Priest’s  _ soldiers, she said you were here, so I came!”

When she stabs another one, barely even looking, she finds herself just a few feet away, close enough that she could reach out and touch him-- if she really wanted, she could just boop him on the nose right now.

“I tried not following the universe for a while, and I made a friend-- his name is Panto-- and we went to a place with  _ magic _ ,” she continues, and then stops. She knows what the universe feels like, definitely; it’s been talking to her for years and years and probably even longer than that. She knows when it wants her to kill someone.

“Really? Ken says, in his clean black clothing, the kind the soldiers are wearing -- a tactical suit -- gun in his belt and radio on his soldier. “I followed the universe, like you showed me to -- and it led me to you!”

“Ken,” she says, and she forgets how to say anything else, and her knife is dripping with blood but it won’t slip out of her fingers, and even if she did she could kill every person in this room right now. Everything in her belly jumps right up into her throat, and her heart seems to beat on the back of her tongue. “Ken, help me, I think the universe messed up, I think something’s wrong.”

Ken steps forward, and the soldiers point their guns at her but not at him, and they move closer but stop when he raises his hand. “Why, what’s going on?”

She shakes her head, but that doesn’t  stop it, so she shakes it harder, and when that doesn’t stop she looks up at Ken, so close, close enough that she could kill him in ten different ways with just one hand and no knife.

“Did you do something?” she asks. “Did you do something bad?”

“I found you,” Ken repeats, which doesn’t make sense because that’s not an answer to her question. “I got inside Blackwing and I found you.”

“Got inside? But they caught you, right? With their guns and cars and fancy stuff?”

She wishes the knife would slip, but that’s silly, because she’d be able to kill him anyway. Maybe if the knife slipped, though, it would be a sign that the universe is wrong and Ken is good and not someone she’s meant to assassinate.

It doesn’t; she shudders.

“What did you do?” she asks again, and she wonders if she’s been shot, because her chest hurts worse than it’s ever hurt before, like that time her leg got stabbed and she bled all over the hotel room even though she’s not meant to. When she reaches up to feel it, though, it’s fine, all dry and in one piece and working like it’s meant to. It doesn’t feel like it’s working, though, and she takes a deep breath to try jumpstart it again.

“They did,” Ken says. “But I found out how to get onto their computers, and now I control most of  it. So I found you.”

“Control?” she asks. “But why-- how?” A soldier steps toward her, but when she glares at him he trips over his shoelace and falls on his gun.

“I essentially control Blackwing now,” Ken replies, and he grins wide and opens up his arms like -- like he wants a hug. That’s not very smart of him, when she’s standing with a knife and blood on every part of her and the universe is showing her just where she needs to stab.

“Are you gonna shut it down, then?” she asks. “You gonna let everyone go?”

Ken’s smile fades, eyes lowering. “Bart,” he says, in the way he always does when she doesn’t understand something and he’s about to explain it. “I know it might not have pleasant memories for you…”

“Oh,” Bart says, because she doesn’t understand everything but she understands this.

“Imagine how much good we could do!” Ken continues. “Like-- we had subjects who could suck away psychic pain. There was a girl who could  _ shapeshift _ . You know who the universe needs you to kill-- imagine if we could quantify that.”

“We?” she repeats, and she feels sort of like the blood from the knife is seeping into her hand, warm and cold at the same time, and her head is fuzzy and full. “Who’s we? I thought we were we.”

“Blackwing could do real good in the world,” Ken says. “Imagine what would happen if we could replicate your power-- we’d be able to stop crime before it even starts.”

“They tried that,” Bart says, and her fingers tighten around the knife. “It didn’t work.”

“We have better tech now! We have more knowledge! If you come in-- if you cooperate--”

Bart steps forward, and four soldiers step closer. She doesn’t focus on them, though, because Ken is in front of her and her head hurts and her heart hurts and her stomach hurts, and she thinks maybe all of her hurts.

“That’s what Priest told me to do,” she says.

There’s a ruckus at the end of the hall, shouting and fighting, and she sees bright clothes and determined faces, and Dirk Gently and his short friend break from the group and start running toward her.

“If you come in quietly,” Ken says, “I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Bart tilts her head. “I can’t get hurt,” she reminds him, even though it feels like a lie.

“You can, though -- I saw it! If we can figure out why, and how, maybe we can find out how you don’t get hurt, and we can start using it on people. We can help people.”

“No, I told you, that’s not how it works. You can’t just-- study me and figure it out and copy it. You don’t--”

“Bart!” Dirk calls, and when she looks over he’s still scared but at least he’s talking to her. “Come on, the way out is clear-- we have to go!”

“I found Ken!” she calls back, and that feels like a lie right now, too. Maybe Blackwing has figured out cloning? Except, no, this is Ken, she knows this is Ken, as much as she would know Priest is Priest or she is herself.

“Bart,” Ken says again, serious and pleading, and Dirk’s hand grasps her upper arm, pulling her backwards. “I can keep you safe.”

“I am safe,” she replies, and tugs out of Dirk’s grasp. “You want-- you want to find out how people can hurt me.”

“To keep people safe,” Ken insists. “To help people. For the greater good.”

“That’s mighty utilitarian of you,” Dirk cuts in, trying to drag Bart back again, this time with both hands. She shakes him off.

“You want to hurt me,” she says. “That’s what you mean. You want to test me and see how you can hurt me.”

Ken shakes his head. “Of course not,” he says. “I just want to see how the universe protects you, so we can start protecting people.”

Bart takes a moment to wonder what it would be like if  _ Priest _ had what she has, if he couldn’t be hurt. She shakes her head.

“I’m a people too, though,” she says, and she thinks of  _ what do you want? _ , and she knows she should kill Ken right now and right here. She doesn’t want to kill him. She doesn’t want to go back to Blackwing. She wants Ken to be her best friend again.

“You could help so many people,” Ken repeats.

“Bart,” Dirk says, hand on her shoulder again but gentler--  _ ha _ !-- this time, just resting.

“Could you come with us, instead?” Bart asks. Begs, maybe.

Ken shakes his head. “Blackwing can do real good,” he says, and he reaches out for her, too, and she feels like so much is reaching and tugging and she doesn’t know what to do,  _ she doesn’t know what to do _ . “I know it’s had its bad moments in the past, but the projects--”

“Projects?” Dirk repeats, sharp. “I don’t know who you think you are, but we’re--”

“People,” Bart finishes. “We’re  _ people _ .”

“Marzanna,” Ken says, and Bart finds herself stumbling back, fingers digging into the handle of the knife so hard she’s going to have dents. He freezes, eyes wide. “I mean--”

Bart’s eyes sting, like someone is scratching at the back of them, and her throat hurts just as much as the rest of her. “I didn’t give you that name,” she says. “You don’t call me that.”

“Bart,” he amends. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t--”

Her vision is all blurry, and she blinks three times like that will clear it, like windscreen wipers pushing away the rain. “You’re them,” she says, and she rocks on her feet. With one swing, she could end this. With one step back, she’d be a step closer to escaping.

“I just want to help,” Ken says, and she thinks he’s telling the truth, is the worst part.

“So do a lot of people,” Dirk’s short friend says. “But you know what they say about the road to hell.”

Bart doesn’t, but Ken nods, and this would usually be the moment where he turns and explains things to her, except he isn’t, because he’s just staring at her, waiting. He blurs again, like a bad shot on a TV screen.

“I’m supposed to kill you,” she says, and there’s fear in Ken’s eyes that she hadn’t seen since she first found him, fear of death, of her. “You did something really bad, or you’re going to, and I’m meant to balance it.”

A few more soldiers step forward, and she grits her teeth at them through her tears.

“If the universe wanted me dead, shouldn’t you have killed me in the first place?” Ken asks, and Bart shrugs widely, Dirk stepping out of the range of her knife.

“I dunno, I think the universe is all messed up because I didn’t kill someone, like, a while ago, and now everyone’s sad and you’re bad, and I’m meant to kill you.”

Ken takes a step backwards, and the soldiers step forward again, this time to shield him, as though they really could keep him safe from her.

“I’m your friend, though, right?” Ken says. “You told me you wouldn’t kill me.”

Bart frowns, and then nods, and then adjusts her grip on her knife.  _ What do you want? _

She takes a step back. “I never had a best friend before,” she says, and takes another step. “And I don’t have one now, either.”

“Bart…”

“I’m probably going to kill you, one day,” she says, because she’s defied the universe once and that didn’t work for long, and she doesn’t know how long she has until everything starts falling apart. She points the knife at him, and all the soldiers tense, guns still pointed at her. “You’re worse than them, you know, because you were my friend and you hurt me. They can’t even hurt me, but you did-- in  _ here _ .” She taps her chest with the knife, still walking back, Dirk and his friend with her.

“I hope you’ll change your mind,” Ken says, and Bart steps back again, keeps stepping back and back and back until there are people she isn’t meant to kill around her, and the universe is guiding her back into Blackwing, into that hallway, but she follows them out instead.

“Shithead,” Dirk’s short friend’s sister says, slamming a stick into the ground. The others murmur and holler in agreement, and Bart wonders why none of them are running away, when that’s what everyone does. 

She steps into the van with all of them, and looks down at the knife she’s still holding, then curls her arms around it, pulling it flat against her chest like it’s one of those really soft child toys.

“What do they say about the road to hell?” she asks, and the weird police woman with the braids  in her hair turns to her. The music in the van, when it turns out, is loud and it shakes her and her seat and only reminds her a little bit of driving with Ken.

“The what now?”

“It’s paved with good intentions,” Dirk’s friend says-- not the short one, but the scary one, the one that stabbed her.

“Oh,” Bart says. “That makes sense.” She looks down at the knife again, so much blood on it but not enough, and she nods. “So, like, he wants to help but really he’s just hurting people.”

“Yeah,” the weird policewoman says. “Like that.”

_ That’s stupid _ , Bart thinks, and then,  _ what do you want? _

She clutches the knife close to her chest, feeling the blood drying into her shirt, and hopes that she hasn’t messed up the universe too badly. Maybe she’s on the road to hell, too, trying to help and not killing people but really just letting innocent people die.

At least Ken would be there, when she reaches the end of the road and runs out of intentions to be good. When that happens, she’ll be ready.

_ What do you want? _

She’ll be ready.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read something happier, I posted a one-shot about [Panto and Bart talking about home in the police station](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12766674). If you want to scream with me about Dirk Gently and murder children, come find me on my tumblr @boxesfullofthoughts.


End file.
